Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Update for June 4th to June 6th, 2013

Here’s the latest of our news bulletins from the ongoing crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

State of the Fukushima Reactors

This week, TEPCO announced yet another leak of radioactive water from a holding tank at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster. This time, the leak affected an aboveground tank that had just been installed. In an ironic twist, TEPCO built the new tank (one of 38 installed in May) specifically to store contaminated water that was previously kept in leaking belowground storage pits. A worker discovered radioactive water dripping from a seam approximately 4 meters from the ground. The tanks are 10 meters high and can hold 500 tons of water. Officials estimate that approximately one liter of water leaked over the course of four hours, and they note that groundwater levels remain below dangerous limits. But the event, one of numerous leaks that have occurred over past months, coupled with several power failures and other equipment breakdowns, once again has experts questioning whether TEPCO has the capacity to handle the ongoing crisis in the upcoming decades.

Water storage at the crippled plant has been an increasingly vexing problem for the utility as it struggles to keep damaged fuel at the reactors cool and eventually, decommission the plant, a process expected to take more than 40 years. Recently, TEPCO announced that it planned to pump groundwater from twelve wells located near the reactors, and dump it into the sea. Each day, approximately 400 tons of groundwater seep into the basements of the damaged reactor buildings, mixing with radioactive water there and becoming contaminated. TEPCO officials had hoped to stem that flow, reducing the amount of radioactive water that would need to be stored by 25%. However, local fishermen, worried about how radioactivity might affect their fish, expressed concern and deep distrust about TEPCO, although company officials insisted that contamination levels of water pumped from the wells was no greater than that of nearby rivers and streams flowing into the ocean. Leaders of the local fisheries cooperatives announced that their members would not vote on the issue until June.

The NRA investigators were only able to stay for 15 minutes on the current tour, because of exceedingly high radiation levels in the building. After more than two years since the nuclear disaster first began to unfold, radiation there still measures between 20 and 30 millisieverts per hour. The group took photographs and will meet to discuss and analyze their findings this month.

In other news, in the days immediately following the nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, TEPCO engineers vastly miscalculated the pressure inside the containment vessel of reactor #2. Although company officials said that they are unable to determine the effects of the error, some analysts say that it may have led to greater amounts of radiation escaping into the atmosphere. The utility did not discover the error for at least a month, and when it did, officials made no announcement about it, instead simply correcting the figures and including them in a large release of data. Most people did not notice the change, although reporters from the Asahi Shimbun asked for an explanation in April 2012 and repeatedly thereafter. A TEPCO official was largely unapologetic when asked about the error, saying, “Workers applied a wrong conversation formula while they were preoccupied with dealing with the accident. We compiled and provided as much information as possible while giving priority to recovery operations at the plant.”

Many evacuees and municipal officials have complained that the compensation forms required are long, and complicated. Others did not understand that they were required to apply numerous times for different time periods, not just once, as well as separately for emotional distress versus the initial temporary payments that the utility distributed early on. Although TEPCO has said it will honor applications submitted after the deadline, it is not legally required to do so, and many doubt its sincerity in those claims. “TEPCO has taken no positive actions for encouraging people to file claims. It probably wants to minimize the amount of compensation. Administrative bodies should turn to those who have yet to file claims and ask them if they wish to do so,” said Diet member Hiroyuki Arrai, who represents Fukushima Prefecture in the Upper House of Parliament.

What a shame. After over 2 years you would think all of the victims would be at least partially compensated for their losses. Where are the people who...

What a shame. After over 2 years you would think all of the victims would be at least partially compensated for their losses. Where are the people who were displaced living and working?God bless the Japanese people for all they are putting up with. Thank you Greenpeace for educating your readers.

"The NRA [which is composed of technicians a scientists chosen by the LDP party] has been making demands one after another [for example that npps are not sitting on active faults, that they have filters on their vents, that a backup control center exists, that people living nearby have an escape route], but this legislators [politicians] group needs to discuss whether such demands are necessary from the scientific viewpoint".

The LDP, whose nuclear policies led to Fukushima, is now telling us that the scientists they chose are not making the political choices the LDP wants, hence politicians will have to make scientific judgements.

This kind of reasoning makes it very hard not to recall the pigs' newspeak in Orwell's Animal Farm.